As I mentioned in June, we have just had a new TV series about the Mitford Sisters, and today I am back to report in on it! Firstly a reminder of the trailer though:
Outrageous is the story of the Mitford sisters in the 1930s. There were six sisters – who are often characterised as Nancy the author, Diana the Fascist, Unity the Nazi, Jessica the communist, Deborah the duchess and Pamela. Poor Pamela – and just for the sake of accuracy she was the second oldest with the lone brother Tom being born third ahead of Diana. This covers the 1930s and ends before the war starts, so is only part of the story and focuses mainly on Nancy, Diana, Unity and Decca.
We watched a bunch of these back to back because they’re just so watchable. Bessie Carter is great as Nancy, who has definitely been made less mean and more likable to the viewer in the adaptation, but Joanna Vanderham is brilliant as Diana because she manages to be loathsome because of her political views, but you also see why the non-fascists among her sisters might still want to be friends with her. And that’s tough to pull off. But really there is so much fascinating material in this. I watched it with Him Indoors who was constantly asking whether things really happened or what happened to them next.
And there is plenty of next because this finishes before the outbreak of the Second World War and there were plenty of things after that that were major and could form part of series two should U decide to make one. And I hope they do, although Unity shooting herself when war is declared isn’t exactly cheerful, but you would then also get to see Deborah and the Devonshires and the Kennedy-adjacency of it all. Fingers crossed it happens.
Now we have finished watching this it has finally got me reading the Mary S Lovell group biography that it’s based on so I can see how they’ve done it and where they have left things out. And I’m also filling in some of the gaps in my reading of Nancy’s books – I’ve read the obvious ones, but I realised while watching that I hadn’t read Wigs on the Green aka the book that Diana and Unity fall out with Nancy over, so I have already remedied that too. And as you know I love reading about the Bright Young Things and Bright-Young-Thing adjacent people so there may yet be more reading off the back of this one.
Outrageous was on U in the UK and is on BritBox in the US. And in the UK you can stream it for free if you go to U directly. And that is a great deal because it’s loads of fun. And the more people who watch it, the better chance we have of a series two…
Have a great Sunday everyone!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 